Is it time to use the Stryker ICV as an Interim Marine Personnel Carrier?

What happens when you're a cheerleader but things are going wrong with your team?  You can do the "fan" thing and keep saying all is well even though they're obviously not (F-35 supporters)...or...you can bite the bullet and say shit is fucked up and its time to fish or cut bait.

Never in a million years would I have predicted that we would be where we're at with the AAV replacement.  When the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was canceled, I was reassured by statements from HQMC that we would turn to and get another vehicle to the fleet quickly.

Hindsight is 20/20 and its now obvious we were fed a heaping dose of bullshit.  So where does that leave us?  Right now we're looking at upgrades to the AAV to begin sometime in the near future (or so we're told) and eventually a selection between four companies for a new, less capable ACV 1.1.

American Mercenary has a different idea...

The AAV is a good solution for getting lots of Marines to shore. It is not an optimal patrolling solution. The Stryker is a great patrolling solution (decent arms and armor, moves fast, very maneuverable). Add in very precise 120mm Mortar Fire and things get very interesting for maneuver commanders.
From my perspective this seems like a win/win for the USMC. The hulls are available, the capabilities of the LAV III family are well known inside the USMC, and there is massive interoperability with the US Army built into the supply chain.
Now, the cons of this solution, it will cost money in an era of diminishing budgets. It won't provide a "leap forward" level of capability for the USMC compared to some of the other (more expensive) options on the table. It may seem to some Marines that they are getting "the Army's scraps" instead of the latest and greatest (although those flat bottomed hulls are still newer than most HMMWVs the USMC has in the inventory).

Read the whole thing here.

Quite honestly, where before I might have automatically poo poo'ed the idea, now I'm not so sure.  It will get us vehicles that we need now.  Give us back the capability to transport 2 Marine Expeditionary Brigades in protected transport and not in MTVRs...and we could fall on the Army's supply chain.

As far as making them amphibious.  Yeah.  Sticking point.  I would argue against doing that so we could get the vehicle we want in the future and not be stuck with interim becoming permanent.

All I know for sure is that less than 500 "modernized" AAVs will not cut it.  The world is burning and we need vehicles now not later.  Army Strykers might be the best we can hope for....at least for the moment.

Mistral-Class Building Projection & Command (BPC) Carrier vid...

Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicles. What's the hold up?

How many of you remember the "Crusher" UGCV?  How about the "Black Knight"?  Check out the vids below and I'll get back to you on the other side...

I talked to a buddy about this and we both came back to one thing.  The war on terror knocked these programs off track.

The point of this post?

We have the lead.  The Europeans, Chinese, Russians and others are basically playing follow the leader when it comes to moves in armor development.  For example.  Wheeled IFVs.  The US Army bought the Stryker and everyone is following that lead.  Forget the fact that the Army is tailoring its force to be expeditionary...everyone else is copying it.  

We have the lead here.  We're doing it and others aren't.  If nothing else this is DARPA hard, and something that they should keep pressing the gas on.

Battalion Landing Team 3/1 conducts mechanized raid...photos by Cpl. Steve H. Lopez

Dragon Ship...via the Royal Navy...

Soldiers & Marines that served in W. Africa are quarantined upon return... UPDATED!!!

UPDATE:  I just hit on something.  The US Army is stepping up and taking the hit on this but those Soldiers are based in Italy.  This is all part of the basing agreement and the agreement to use Italy and Spain as jump off points for the relief missions to Africa.  If they weren't quarantined when they came back then the agreement would be off.  Good on the Army for doing the right thing.  Bad on the Army for not telling the fucking truth.


via Shepherd of the Gurneys.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Army has started isolating soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission in West Africa, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and there was no incident signaling potential exposure, the Pentagon said on Monday.The decision goes well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as the White House pushed to roll back steps by U.S. states to quarantine healthcare workers returning from countries battling Ebola epidemics, even if they showed no symptoms of infection.
The Army has already isolated about a dozen soldiers at part of a U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. This includes Major General Darryl Williams, who oversaw the military's initial response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Williams is the head of the U.S. Army Africa, which is based at Vicenza, and the senior Army officer at the base.
"They're not allowed to leave," said Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
Dozens more troops would be isolated in the coming days as they rotate out of West Africa, where the U.S. military has been building Ebola treatment facilities to help health authorities treat Ebola victims, the Pentagon said.
"There was no single triggering event. This is really a decision that's made out of an abundance of caution," Warren said.
The Army is the only service to implement such a move. The only personnel who have rotated out of the operation so far have been from the Army, Warren said.
But a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that discussions were under way about taking similar action across the U.S. armed forces.

Rant time.

So a fucking princess of a nurse can sue because she worked directly with Ebola patients and lives in the New York/New Jersey megalopolis....and the governors of those states want to protect their people from an outbreak....

But service members that had no direct contact are being quarantined???

Yeah.  We're seeing complete and utter bullshit on the Ebola issue.

SIDENOTE:  Remember the post where I said that this would take SPMAGTF-CR Africa out of action for at least 21 days after mission completion, longer if a member got sick?  Well its worse than that now.  We're talking about taking the 101st Airborne Headquarters and a Brigade from that unit out of action too.  I complain about the USMC being stretched thin but have you seen the Army's taskings lately?  We're playing with the national security of the United States in many ways.  To me this is beyond crazy.  Worse?  The world is burning and we might need those forces for combat, not humanitarian missions.

They made her a "poster" girl for women in combat & ISIS beheaded her.

Thanks for the link William...

I read the stories about the fierce female fighters of the YPG....I heard people talk about how ISIS was scared shit-less to face these females.

And I knew it was all bullshit.

Now the poster girl for women in combat has been beheaded (if she was lucky all they did was behead her).  Check this out from 9 News.

A prominent female Kurdish "freedom fighter" may have been executed by beheading, according to unconfirmed reports on social media.
The young woman, who went by the nom du guerre "Rehana" became a symbol of the Kurdish resistance movement when pro-Kurdish journalist Pawan Durani tweeted a picture of her giving a peace sign.
"Rehana has killed more than 100 ISIS terrorists in Kobane," his tweet read.
There has been no independent verification of the claim, but the photo went viral, receiving more than 5000 retweets.
Female Kurdish fighters of the Yekineyen Parastina Jin (YPJ), or Women Protection Units are involved in the struggle for the key Syrian border town of Kobane.
The town of Kobane has become a crucial battleground in the war against ISIL, representing the gateway to northern Syria and the Turkish border.
This brave and unique force of women are highly trained, committed and fearless, in a fight that represents the survival of an entire people.
They believe that in their fight there is no difference between a man and a woman, but are aware they fight an enemy that routinely rapes the women it captures before butchering them or selling them into slavery.
Now there is speculation that Rehana has been captured or killed, with gruesome photos purporting to show her decapitated body circulating on social media. But the death is unconfirmed.

Notice that no one is talking about the circumstances of her capture?

I won't dig deeper into her capture and murder but I will add a cautionary note.  All these older females that are trying to "open" doors for their daughters...and yours, to join the infantry are FOOLS.

Women in the infantry is a bad idea.  Rehana died because she was young, bought the hype, was an image for a cause and was in the end hung out to dry.

If I had a daughter I wouldn't let her within 5000nm of a warzone and would worry about her going shopping.  What kind of people would want to put their mothers, daughters and sisters in that meat grinder?  I might be borderline sexist but proponents of this idea are plain sick.